1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to methods and apparatus for communication of notifications, and more particularly to communication of notifications in a wireless communication system where a primary message communicates the presence of current notifications and a notification message communicates addressed notification information.
2. Background
In a wireless broadcast environment, such as in orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) broadcast systems, wireless devices need to obtain the latest or updated system state information so that users of such devices can access and receive the latest data or content over the wireless broadcast network with minimal delay. Specifically, in order to obtain the latest system state information, which may include system notifications intended for one or more wireless devices, each of the wireless devices needs to continuously receive and process the updated information. This procedure, however, introduces significant consumption of the wireless device power resources and, therefore, reduces its standby time. It is axiomatic that mobile devices by their nature have limited power and processing resources. Thus, the requirement to obtain the latest system state information, which utilizes processing and power resources, introduces many challenges for power conservation in wireless devices.
In order to conserve processing and power resources, the co-pending application entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR COMMUNICATING SYSTEM STATE INFORMATION CHANGE TO WIRELESS DEVICES” referred to above and incorporated by reference herein, introduces the concept of a broadcast flow termed the “primary flow” having an abbreviated primary message from which a device can quickly determine whether system state changes have occurred. In particular, the primary message in the primary flow may contain abbreviated or shorthand information for a device to quickly determine current system information in order to effect savings of processing resources and power. Even though a primary message may reduce the amount of information needed to communicate system information, however, notification messages, which are typically broadcast in other flows, such as a notification flow, may still be configured such that processing resources are wasted by processing one or more notification messages that are not relevant to a particular receiving device. That is, the notification messages are not targeted to specific devices or groups of receiving devices, thus a receiving device will expend resources to process notification messages even though those messages are not applicable to the device.